Sorry, But... Your Exceptional Child Might Not Be "Gifted"

I have been asked my opinion about gifted education topics in a fair number of places but this one has got to be the most unusual. At the very least, it’s the most unexpected because, at the moment, my wife and I are waiting for an eye care specialist to be free of her current client so we can take our turn. Yep, here in the store’s waiting area, surrounded by eyeglass frames of all shapes and sizes, we have met a lady who, as it turns out, is also a teacher in a neighboring district. She’s friends with a colleague of mine, Stacy, who just left the high school I used to work at in order to be the dual enrollment English teacher at this lady’s high school. She too teaches English and we complain about all the essays that have to be graded (“A paper treadmill!”). But now she has discovered I have since become a gifted resource specialist. And since that moment, for about the last ten minutes at least, she has been on a,… well, a rant really.

Truthfully, I am feeling a tad impatient, but I am also trying to be a good sport because I know this kind of thing happens to everyone. The man who is a contractor is asked at a holiday party what he would do to make the host’s living room just a bit larger. A massage therapist hears the same joke every time: “Wow, your husband must love being married to you!” The dentist is asked how she can stand to “look at all those people’s teeth every day!” The thing is I am used to fielding questions—from parents and teachers alike—in a more typical manner: through emails or phone, or at meetings in conference rooms. Sometimes I am even stopped in the halls at the schools I work in so I can give my opinion as to whether or not a certain child’s behavior in the classroom is “typical of a gifted kid.”

On this occasion, though, the reason I am biding my time, hoping that the sales lady at Lens Crafters will soon be available, is because the lady talking to (read: at) my wife and I has entered that stage of the conversation that is commonly joked about among those in education: Everyone thinks their child is gifted.

Of course, I am being a bit facetious. For all I know, this lady’s son really is gifted but I cannot judge based solely on the evidence she is offering. She insists her son must be so because as, a kindergartner, he is already reading at the second grade level.

Please understand: this reading level is impressive, sure, and like the school curriculum for any learner, this child’s advanced abilities in this area should require his school teacher to adjust her lessons accordingly. However, that claim alone is not enough to certify this young man as gifted.

Although I will not get into this exchange of ideas now—seated as we are among others who are waiting their turn to have lenses ground or frames adjusted—I have had this conversation, or similar ones, many times over. Once we finally get there, at the heart of it all, will lie two central debate points. One is the age old question of Nature versus Nurture. The other will focus on how we ultimately define and assess the quality of “gifted-ness.”

Of course, it is impossible to separate the yin-yang duality of Nature and Nurture. A person’s natural gifts, like a keen mind, are indeed shaped and further molded by his environment. But when a parent claims that her child is gifted because he can, say, read several grade levels above his young peers, or count to 100 at the age of three, or “name all fifty states in alphabetical order when he was just five”… then that parent is perhaps confusing correlation with causation. He can do all of these things, so he must be gifted, the thinking goes.

Um, not so fast. Perhaps it’s true that he is gifted, but it is not necessarily true merely because those examples could be offered.

It is possible that this lady’s young child is reading above grade level because he comes from a household that is rich with stimulation (ahem, Nurture). His parents, and in particular his mother who is an English teacher, likely read to him every night. They engage him in conversation and use wide-ranging vocabulary to express themselves. They encourage and foster his reading skills when, say, they go the grocery store and ask his help as they read the signs above each aisle trying to find the ketchup (catsup?). More than likely, this child even sees reading modeled as a habit at home. So when his Fountas and Pinnell pre-test places him at Level G—while another child whose home is a bit less stimulating lands on Level B—it is tempting to look for the gifted traits right away.

And yet if the parents of both children—the lower and higher enrichment households—could somehow look ahead into their child’s third or fourth grade school year, they might be surprised to find that each child is reading now at the same level. Why would this happen? Simply put, the enriched child’s household gave him a leg up on his peers, but true “giftedness,” as we might typically define it in most schools, was never really at play.

And so you see why the second debate point arises: This begs the definition of what true “giftedness” really is.

That conversation is a hard one to navigate and it’s made no less difficult when you find yourself in a strip mall store with a person you have met only fifteen minutes ago. Another reason why I have decided to let this mother speak her mind as I, mostly, nod my head.

If I could engage her more meaningfully, I might tell her about a man named Howard Gardner (heck, she’s probably even heard of him). Gardner is an education psychologist who, in the early 80s challenged the very notion of what it means to be "intelligent." He questioned the idea that intelligence is a single entity; that it results from a single factor; and that it can be measured simply via IQ tests. Instead, he offered the idea that “there exists a multitude of intelligences, quite independent of each other; that each intelligence has its own strengths and constraints; that the mind is far from unencumbered at birth.” In his book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, he outlined at least seven different ways (though later he would add more) that a person could be “smart.” Some of those included being especially gifted with verbal/linguistic tendencies, mathematical/logical traits, inter- and intrapersonal skills, musical abilities, etc. His goal was to get educators to consider not “How smart is Johnny?” but rather “How is Johnny smart?”

Granted, Gardner never wrote actually wrote about the nature of being "gifted" in the way that this mother is discussing that word with me. And yet, his theory single-handedly created a new way to have a conversation about any individual’s strengths and weaknesses, both in and out of school. It allowed teachers and parents alike to see and identify the real “gifts” that were at play when, say, a high school sophomore could completely deconstruct and then reassemble a car’s V-8 engine—even as he failed his English end-of-grade test by just a few points.

Alas, … I would eventually have to tell this very animated woman before me that—no matter how much I personally love his theory’s inclusiveness—Gardner’s particular notion of intelligence (and what that might imply for defining “giftedness,” and offering subsequent “gifted services") is a little less than practical in most schools. The truth is that it is easier to identify students as traditionally “gifted” if we fall back on the more standard, nationally norm-referenced assessments, like,… yes, an IQ test.

Typically, these IQ-style tests look at a student’s verbal (i.e. one’s vocabulary base) and non-verbal (e.g. recognizing and predicting patterns) skills. These are then combined into a composite score, which is very likely at least one of the elements that help a child earn his “gifted” label. It’s this way in the majority of most schools in the U.S.

You’re clever, dear Reader. You can see where this is going and, now, why I have avoided engaging in this dialogue: at this point in the conversation, the same central two debate points we might have been plowing through would come full circle.

Did the enriched verbal household give that child an advantage in his early gifted identification? Is that why it appears that the other child had “caught up” by fourth grade? Or perhaps that young child truly is gifted. How then, some would argue, do we define that other fourth grader’s “gifts?” It’s easy for this to become a circular conversation, and you start to see why a lot of school districts don’t even bother with full-bore “gifted identification” until the third grade year.

I see that, finally, a store employee has been freed up, and so now it is our turn to be fitted.

“Yeah,” I say, standing up, “I hear you. That’s a tough call.” I’m hedging my bets as I wrap up the conversation because, as I’ve told you, I don’t know her child at all—especially to intuit solely by this conversation if he’s gifted or not. “I think you should talk to the teacher some more. You can always ask for him to be screened whenever you want. And keep doing what you’re doing at home!”

We shake hands. It occurs to me that Howard Gardner might tell her not to worry so much about her kindergartener, to instead look at all the ways her child is "gifted"... and talented.

I would challenge this article by asking how many of the kids who were previously ahead were able to work at their natural capacity? I have seen plenty of first hand examples of kids who came into school significantly ahead of their peers and yet they were told that they had to do the exact same thing as everyone else in the classroom. Today's school model seems to concentrate on getting everyone to the middle. The teachers have to focus on getting everyone to passing. Most just don't have time to do enrichment for the top students because that's not what they're being judged on. Student "A" already can read, so he gets coasted along while the focus is on Student "B" who can't read yet.

If we could create a classroom where students could each move ahead at their own pace, I think we'd hear a lot less of this "they all level out at third grade" myth.

I think your comments are spot on for the most part and I see little to disagree with. Your proposal that everyone, if given a chance to truly work at their own ability and pace, would likely do better or achieve more has a lot of merit--even if that reality in most educational venues is problematic. I might only say that the third grade gifted "leveling out myth" you are taking issue with is likely not a myth if the child was never really gifted to begin with.

Christopher, the problem in the myth is the *ALL*. Some kids do even out in third grade if they have been 'hot-housed'. However, many kids do not even out in third grade because they are gifted. Unfortunately, this myth is used to deny services to these gifted kids before third grade because the school claims they don't know if the kid is actually gifted or not. (This happened with us.)

What I find even more troubling is the kids who are gifted who level out in third grade because they have learned to hide their intelligence to fit in, have mentally dropped out of school because they already know the subject matter, or have already learned abysmal study habits because school was extremely easy. Much of this can be attributed to not providing services for gifted learners, often due to the pernicious myths that surround them.

I agree with Kelly. If the classroom allowed for each child to work at their own pace and ability, students wouldn't "level out" as much. Until then, it remains vital that gifted children be identified and served, even if it means that 'nurtured' children are also instructed as if they were gifted. Who says that they can't continue at their higher level as well?

At last reading, Gardner said nothing about 'giftedness'. He did write about intelligence. But the best way to distinguish between 'how one is intelligent' and 'giftedness' is to consider that giftedness is the *extent* to which one has a particular of Gardner's intelligences. Gardner didn't say what a child is if they have all of his intelligences significantly above the norm.

I quite agree with your observations that Gardner never meant to discuss "giftedness" in the sense that this article addresses that word. I appreciate your pointing this out, as I may have muddied the waters a bit by trying to extrapolate what his concepts of intelligence COULD say about (re)defining giftedness. I have revised a bit to decrease the chances of confusing future readers.

This is something we've been going through lately. My 7 year old son was just tested by the school and they said that he's not considered "gifted" because he scored in the 95th percentile. The thing is, since they told me they wanted to test a year ago, I've been reading up on "gifted" kids and my son's behaviours makes so much more sense when I look at him through the "gifted" lens. He displays a lot of the characteristics - intensity, sensory sensitivitities, perfectionism, anxiety (eg. he was worried about the meteor hitting the earth, so he tried to figure out the speed of the earth rotation around the sun to determine the probability of the meteor hitting us), taking up interests to an extreme point. (For example, he became interested in plants, so he started growing a variety of plants, using his allowance on buying seed, watching movies and researching plants, wants to attend museums to learn about plants, etc...). He also spends a lot of time wondering about the origins of life on the planet. At the end of the day, I don't know whether I should worry about whether or not he's labelled as gifted, but then I wonder if I don't pursue it, if he's going to be labelled as something else, (ie. OCD, Asperger, ADHD) by mistake. I also worry that he's starting to become a mediorce student is school, and I wonder if he's producing what he's capable of. But on the other hand, maybe I'm just one of those moms who just thinks their kid is gifted. Any suggestions?

I agree with Peter, who also commented. I think it is quite appropriate for you to pursue gifted identification when your child is at the 95th percentile. Couple that with the traits you point out and I think you have a strong reason to appeal the school's decision. I wouldn't worry too much that he will be labeled with another label (OCD, Asperger, ADHD) as long as you feel the staff there is professional and at least somewhat experienced with what seven-year-olds are like. I would hope that the traits you've listed off (the ones that you think might make others see your son as OCD, etc.) are viewed with a broader spectrum of a kid who is, after all, just in first grade.

95th percentile if gifted enough for me. I would ask for an appeal or at worst, a re-sit. There is no sharp dividing line and certainly less so when the child is a. so young and b. there could be any number of reasons for a less than optimal performance. Giftedness is a lot more than a score on a test.

I'm of two minds about this. I do think a lot of parents think their child is gifted, maybe reasonably so when they are a few years ahead, However, I can't stand it when I hear them say "Oh, my child is profoundly gifted'- without an IQ test being performed. To put that kind of label on a child is ridiculous and cruel. The child may be bright, or mildly gifted. Even going to college two years early doesn't necessarily mean "PROFOUNDLY gifted".

The other part of me disagrees with the whole "children even out by third grade". I think it could be the case of a gifted child being bored and not fulfilling their potential; if you have no enrichment at home, and you rely upon school to teach, then obviously one will only learn what they have access to. So it may look like they're evening out, however, they are just at a stand-still.

Several of my childhood friends attended a school called the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (L.A.C.E.S), a public magnet school. Many (perhaps most, if not all, I am not sure) classes there were not structured by age or grade, but by ability (which I assume was based on some entry tests). My friend took Calculus in 10th grade. She had 11th and 12th graders in her class and perhaps some 9th graders as well. Electives, of course, had mixed ages / grades. This always seemed like a wonderful system. Would it be too complicated to implement this system at most public schools? L.A.C.E.S. students all had lockers, switched classes and had college-style schedules (e.g., Tue/Thu English, Mon/Wed Chemistry, etc.) starting from 4th grade. This system seems to foster independence and self-reliance.

I would like to know more about how to help my non-gifted but very bright child thrive and excel in school. She's 99th% performance, but only 90th% for reading in IQ, and 98th% in math. By little one is similar. VERY bright, questioning, but not profoundly gifted. And quite frankly I am happy with that. Both are noted by their art and music teachers as very talented.

Our schools are, 98th% or above in IQ AND performance in BOTH verbal AND math, and at least 99.5th% for one IQ test--it is a high bar, my family is very mathematical/musical but we are verbally just above average... they will never get in, no matter how much we retest, and there are no appeals, not that it matters. The state's justification for gifted programs is on a special needs basis and really smart kids are not special needs: geniuses are.

What is frustrating is that I feel that there is not a lot of room to be challenged if you aren't special-needs gifted.

Unlike some kids whose parents re-test, my children do great in school in the normal classroom. They like being the best in their classes. They aren't overly anxious. I have really drilled it into them that their job is to follow instructions and offered repeated rewards. They are okay with reading under the desk and drawing for fun at school. They have both been in bilingual education since they were pre-schoolers. They behave and I have managed to work with them so they are well prepared for public school which is about going with the group flow and following directions and not about learning at your own level.

Still, I sometimes worry that all this talk about giftedness obscures this issue. I know I'm not profoundly gifted but that I benefited from challenges at school (I was in a gifted program that you could be in if you were in the 99th% for any one thing--totally different).

I know my kids aren't profoundly gifted or even "gifted" in the sense of the word that their brains work fundamentally differently than those of other children... but I still think they would benefit from creative thought and challenging work.

It makes me sad that we worry about who makes some arbitrary cutoff rather than letting teachers teach and letting kids reach their own potential, *no matter where they start*.

This post is fairly old by internet standards, but it seems nobody has taken you up on your suggestion for further conversation on this subject.

I think the reason so many people are desperate to secure gifted education in public schools (especially when their kids are just a few points shy of the cut off) is due to public schools being under resourced in general. The difference between a ''gifted education program'' and regular classroom program is on par with the difference between a public school and private education.

In that regards, if your child is labeled 'gifted', you are able to access (for free where I live) a substantially better education for your child - on par to a very expensive private school education. It is more stimulating, the teachers have higher qualifications, there are more excursions, etc etc.

Many parents of gifted children believe they are entitled to these benefits for their child. They're correct. However, so is every other child regardless of their score on a test (IQ is more highly correlated with family wealth than ability to learn).

In order to justify getting into these programs parents are driven to say quite offensive things to justify their claim to ''special education''. They run the gamut from ''they need to be with their peers'' - implying: ''I can't let them talk to anyone with a lower IQ score, what could they possibly gain from that interaction?'' This inadvertently implies that IQ is a measure of a person's worth and it encourages discrimination and segregation based on only one characteristic of that child.

To ''children with high IQ scores should have special schools/programs, because children with low IQ scores have special schools/programs". Perhaps because my IQ is in the top 0.002% (true, but I'm being facetious), the astounding flaw in this argument in blinding.

Children who test so low in IQ tests that they require special education often have disabilities which hinder their development in one or more areas - cognition being one of those areas. This is reflected in their IQ score and sometimes other areas too. Many of them have chromosome or DNA differences to ''most'' children. A small percentage have suffered through some kind of disadvantage (esl, transitory hearing loss, poverty, a parent with a health problem, abuse).

As it stands, nobody has discovered genetic proof of ''giftedness''. The DNA of a ''gifted'' child and a ''regular'' child is considered functionally identical (different expressions of the same genes, where expression is modified by environment resulting in structural brain differences). Finding what makes a child gifted (think along the lines of; expendable income, supportive environment, stimulation and relaxed and adventurous family holidays) could assist every child to uncover their own abilities. It might help to compensate for disadvantage.

However, ultimately, you need to demand the same quality of education. Then nobody would be upset about their kid not getting into the ''gifted program''.

I think my parents thought I was gifted when I was young but I was just good, and had a discernible talent for drawing. Fortunately they didn't have time to agonise over how amazing they thought I was so I ended up with quite a normal ego. However, I do often call myself an over-achiever, as, despite my parents' belief, I actually have a low-average IQ, as per a series of well established and respective IQ tests undertaken when I commenced university. I completed a double degree in law and science, which is traditionally viewed as one of those "hard" degrees, alongside students who undoubtedly had IQ scores into the stratosphere. But I still achieved the same and I didn't have to study any harder than the average person, and I didn't find any of it too hard. So I just never think about my very average IQ, except to bring it up when others boast about their high IQ - so that I can state that I am the ultimate over-achiever.. I'm just not sure that the endless discussions on gifted was and IQ help anyone. If we focused on resilience, perhaps that would assist people on just getting on with doing what they need to do to get ahead, despite not being accepted for the gifted program at primary school or whatever else it is. Who cares? - like me, some of the average kids will probably end up in the same lecture theatre at uni with their high IQ mates.

I am tired of being told by teachers that because other kids will catch up to my child by 3rd grade (didn't happen by the way) that they don't need to do anything extra for my gifted reader. It has been researched and proven that if gifted readers are not taught to their level, then yes, the others can catch up because they are not receiving the challenging work they need. Now in 4th grade (the other kids still haven't caught up to her, still waiting for this prediction to happen), I was told today "all parents think their kids are smart" even though my child has been tested and accepted to the Gifted and Talented program. The teachers, however, do not want to do any curriculum compacting or any acceleration at all because they are using these excuses and myths as reasons not to challenge my daughter in the classroom.

I think this article really plays into these myths and causes additional problems for gifted children and their parents fighting for their child to be taught to their level.

As the parent of 2 children that were both read to every night and talked to the same, 1 child is an advanced gifted reader and the other is a "good" reader for her age, but is no where near the reading or writing ability of the gifted reader. It's short sighted to say that because you read to them every night, they will automatically display signs of giftedness that will go away by 3rd grade. The schools do not encourage giftedness and look at it as a problem rather than a gift.

It has been a frustrating experience, and one in which I am constantly questioning myself because there are so many negative experiences in the school system. Gifted readers don't just read ahead of their level. They take a book that they read, and then go to the adult section of the library and take out every non-fiction book they can get their hands on and read more about the topic that has interested them (an example of this is reading Percy Jackson and then reading literally everything at the public library about Greek Mythology). I don't know many kids that would take the initiative to do this. (I certainly didn't suggest it; she just did it.) The ones that do are the gifted readers. My 4th grader read A Midsummer Nights' Dream this summer and then re-wrote the play in her own words, came up with costumes, assigned parts, and had family and friends perform it (and she did this in one day!). So, you can imagine why I get so upset with the "everyone will catch up to your kid, so we don't have to do anything special" or the "every parent thinks their kid is smart" excuses. Not every kid is re-writing Shakespeare the summer before 4th grade or doing countless other things that she does.

Just my 2 cents from a mom that is tired of these myths being propagated. It's one thing to discuss traits and differences of gifted and smart kids, but to say every kid that is read to will show signs of giftedness that will go away, is not true and damaging to kids that are gifted in a subject.

It can be extremely difficult to get the advanced teaching that is needed for a child and then that child is bored in school. I've been asked so many times "why do I have to go to school? We're not learning anything new." Very sad that this is what happens to the kids at the top when we are teaching to bring all the kids to the middle.

I certainly do not want other kids not to reach the middle, if that is their goal. I want my kids to be around a diverse mixture of children of all IQs. But, like every parent, I want her needs met just as much as the parents of the kids that are in the middle and at the low end want their kids needs met.